Linux'un Sosyal Boyutu

gultekin onan (gultekin_onan@hotmail.com)
Mon, 16 Feb 1998 11:19:19 PST


Herkese merhaba,

Linux ile yeni tanışanlardanım. Şu anda bilgisayarımda
Slackware versiyonu kurulu ve aramız hiç de fena değil.
Halihazırda İnternetten indirdiğim Matt Welsh'in Linux
Installation and Getting Started kitabını okuyorum.
Bence yeni başlayanlar için biçilmiş kaftan. İsteyen olursa
gönderebilirim (Zipli text formatındaki büyüklüğü 200K).

Dört yıldır bilgisayarlarla uğraşıyorum. Linux sayesinde
ilk defa meselenin sosyal boyutunu da görmeye başladım.
Free Software kavramı başlı başına bir inceleme konusu.
Bu konuda İnternet üzerinde zengin sayılabilecek kaynaklar
var. Bu nedenle Linux tartışma gruplarının kendilerini
yalnızca teknik meselelerle sınırlı tutmamaları gerektiğini
düşünüyorum. Bu konuda rastladığınız "cool" makaleleri
lütfen gönderiniz.

Benim karşıma çok çıkan ve "derin" tartışmalara yol açmış
The Cathedral and the Bazaar adlı makalenin ilk bölümünü
gönderiyorum. Dileyen gerisini şu adresten bulabilir:

http://www.redhat.com/redhat/cathedral-bazaar/

Yorumlarınızı bekliyorum.

Sevgiler

Gültekin Onan
ICQ No: 825 2680

1. The Cathedral and the Bazaar

Linux is subversive. Who would have thought even five years ago
that a world-class operating system could coalesce as if by magic
out of part-time hacking by several thousand developers scattered
all over the planet, connected only by the tenuous strands of the
Internet?
Certainly not I. By the time Linux swam onto my radar screen in early
1993,
I had already been involved in Unix and free-software development for
ten years. I was one of the first GNU contributors in the mid-1980s.
I had released a good deal of free software onto the net, developing or
co-developing several programs (nethack, Emacs VC and GUD modes, xlife,
and others) that are still in wide use today. I thought I knew how it
was done.

Linux overturned much of what I thought I knew. I had been preaching
the Unix gospel of small tools, rapid prototyping and evolutionary
programming for years. But I also believed there was a certain critical
complexity above which a more centralized, a priori approach was
required.
I believed that the most important software (operating systems and
really
large tools like Emacs) needed to be built like cathedrals, carefully
crafted by individual wizards or small bands of mages working in
splendid
isolation, with no beta to be released before its time.
Linus Torvalds's style of development - release early and often,
delegate everything you can, be open to the point of promiscuity -
came as a surprise. No quiet, reverent cathedral-building here --
rather, the Linux community seemed to resemble a great babbling
bazaar of differing agendas and approaches (aptly symbolized by the
Linux archive sites, who'd take submissions from anyone) out of which
a coherent and stable system could seemingly emerge only by a succession
of miracles.

The fact that this bazaar style seemed to work, and work well,
came as a distinct shock. As I learned my way around, I worked hard not
just at individual projects, but also at trying to understand why the
Linux world not only didn't fly apart in confusion but seemed to go from
strength to strength at a speed barely imaginable to cathedral-builders.
By mid-1996 I thought I was beginning to understand. Chance handed me a
perfect way to test my theory, in the form of a free-software project
which I could consciously try to run in the bazaar style. So I did --and
it was a significant success.

In the rest of this article, I'll tell the story of that project,
and I'll use it to propose some aphorisms about effective free-software
development.
Not all of these are things I first learned in the Linux world, but
we'll see how the Linux world gives them particular point. If I'm
correct, they'll help you understand exactly what it is that makes the
Linux community such a fountain of good software -- and help you become
more productive yourself.

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